|
|
|
|
|
Congress warms up to Jaya
Centrestage |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Can the Left stage a comeback or the CPM survive?
SC to hear Dinakaran case today
Cong has its task cut out at plenary session
BKU firebrand leader Mahendra Tikait is no more
RTE monitor: Make child labour cognisable offence
Punjab CM’s wife shifted to ICU
Jantar Mantar
|
|
Congress warms up to Jaya
New Delhi, May 15 Confirming Sonia called up Jayalalithaa on Saturday to greet her, Congress Spokesperson Jayanthi Natarajan, however, sought to play down the party president’s gesture. “It is a routine courtesy when a political leader achieves a spectacular win. Courtesy is extended in a democracy and I believe it is a healthy trend,” she said. Asked about the possibility of an alliance between her party and the AIADMK, she said such decisions were based on ideology and principles. “Further, “these decisions are taken by the High Command,” she said. The ties between the Congress and the DMK had come under strain following the 2G scam and the subsequent quitting of A Raja as the Telecom Minister and his arrest in the case. There had been reports over the imminent pull-out of the DMK from UPA-II government at the Centre after the CBI questioned DMK chief K Karunanidhi’s daughter Kanimozhi and wife Dayaluammal in connection with the scam. Their relations had also run into rough weather at the time of negotiations over seat sharing for the Assembly elections. The DMK had to rush party leader Dayanidhi Maran to Delhi to meet Sonia and clinch a deal by ironing out the differences. According to political watchers, the DMK’s electoral debacle in the Assembly election would only worsen its equations with the Congress. It is significant that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has also greeted Jayalalithaa on her electoral victory. Also, it is believed Sonia has invited the AIADMK chief for tea and Jayalalithaa has accepted the invitation. The last time, the two leaders had exchanged pleasantries was at a function held to mark the diamond jubilee celebrations of the Election Commission in Delhi in 2010.
Pranab acknowledges
Mamata’s leadership
Kolkata, May 15 Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, AICC general secretary (in charge of West Bengal) said since the Congress and the TMC had fought jointly against the Left, they should also be partners in the coalition government. Congratulating Mamata Banerjee, he acknowledged her leadership qualities. He said the Congress had performed well in these elections for which credit should go to Mamata.
|
|
Centrestage
The manifesto spoke of her party’s determination to transform Kolkata to London, the coastal town of Digha to ‘Goa of the East’ and the Darjeeling hills into Switzerland. Smug communists laughed into their sleeves at what appeared naïve and reckless promises made by a lady suffering from a case of arrested adolescence. But then the manifesto carried a lot more than just hyperbole. It laid down an action plan if Trinamool Congress is voted to power. It neatly recorded what the government would do during the first six months or 200 days of its tenure; and what would be its endeavour in the next 1,000 days or three years. Some of the promises ( see box) may appear extravagant and unrealistic but then that is typical of the lady, who normally throws caution to the wind and who dares to dream and dream big. The Bengali version of the manifesto dwells at length at what the Railways had done for West Bengal during her tenure as Union Railway Minister ( see box). And the underlying message was unmistakable. If she could do so much at so short a time as the Railway Minister, imagine what she would do as Chief Minister ? The odds
It is not exactly a state secret that West Bengal was once an important manufacturing hub. But the violence unleashed by the Naxalite movement in the sixties, militant trade unionism of the seventies, shortage of land and power in the eighties and a hostile communist government suspicious of Capital had shut down one factory after another and forced industry to migrate. In 1975-76 West Bengal’s share in the country’s Net Domestic Product was 19 per cent, the same as Gujarat’s. But by 2008-09, Gujarat’s share had gone up to over 30 per cent while West Bengal’s declined to a little over 7 per cent. Correspondingly, the state’s share in the number of factories has also gone down to less than four per cent with the state’s share of employment in the manufacturing sector going down to five per cent from a high of 18 per cent in the sixties. While the first Left Front government did pioneering work and redistributed land to the tillers, Agriculture stagnated in the state thereafter. Land holdings were too small to sustain agro-based industries. Lack of infrastructure like cold chains and roads also affected marketing and productivity declined progressively in the state. The Left Front’s reluctance to usher in reforms led to inordinate delay in implementing the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act (
FRBM) is believed to have allowed leakage of funds and the state’s public debt to spiral up to a record high of Rupees two lakh
crores. Has Mamata swallowed more than she could chew ? Even as she grapples with public finance, one of her acid tests will be at Singur, where she had launched an agitation against land acquisition by the state government and forced Tata Motors to shift its factory to Gujarat. She is committed to return 400 acres of land to farmers who had complained that their land was acquired for the factory against their wishes. Now that she is in power, she would be under intense pressure to deliver on her promise. While the remaining farmers, who dreamt of jobs in the factory, would expect her to take the land back from Tatas and launch some other industry. Getting an industrial venture going at Singur will be a lot easier than re-distributing the acquired land among farmers. Besides the legal complications, it would be a Herculean, if not a downright impossible task, to identify individual plots. More so since factory sheds etc. were already built on the acquired land. She may also rue the statement that she would try to solve the Maoist and the Gorkhaland issues within three months. Nobody can doubt her sincerity but both Jangal Mahal ( Maoist stronghold) and the Gorkhaland are complicated issues and would require careful handling. While she can reach out to the people and buy time, an inordinate delay in working out a permanent solution could well slow her down. The hurdles
She of course faces formidable hurdles. It will be far from easy dealing with the CPM in the opposition. Smarting at the rout, the outgoing ‘Big daddy’ of the Left Front will no doubt retreat and lick its wounds for the time being. Decimated in the election, it no longer has the numbers in the Assembly to mount an effective opposition. Chances are it will bide its time and hit out on the streets. Post-poll violence and taming the wounded CPM will be high on her agenda because otherwise all her plans would go for a toss. Given her pathological distrust of the CPM in particular and the Left in general, it remains to be seen how she tackles the communists and their front
organisations. Mamata also faces an uphill task of transforming the hitherto pampered clerks, policemen and teachers, a large army of whom owe their allegiance to one communist party or the other. They are invariably paid well but did more work for the party than for the people at large. Unruly but organised, any attempt to rein them in might lead to clashes. It would require extraordinary tact, patience and skill to manage the unmanageable. Her own party comprises disparate elements. A large number of people, expelled by the CPM in recent years, are believed to have joined her bandwagon. While the CPM paid a price for allowing them a free run for a long time, Mamata can ill-afford the luxury of letting these elements run the show and allow them to do business ‘as usual’. Lacking an organisation may have actually helped her win the election but post-election, any lack of accountability can quickly backfire. While she has promised ‘jan-tantra’ ( democracy) in place of ‘dal-tantra’ ( Rule by the Party) , she herself is known to be quite autocratic. She rarely brooks any dissent and it is well known that she hand picked all her candidates herself, often ignoring suggestions made by party veterans. Her consensus building ability is yet to be tested but in power, she will be required to reconcile conflicting interests and consolidate the party without quite letting it get out of control. White collars
But nobody can afford to write off the lady who has built up a party from scratch. A 13-year-old outfit but a one-woman-party till recently, Trinamool Congress has already ushered in significant changes in West Bengal’s politics. While the rest of the country continues to debate on the need to attract the educated and professionals into politics, she has managed to do just that and attracted an enviable array of the civil society around her. What could have prompted writer Mahashweta
Devi, filmmaker Aparna Sen, folk singer Kabir Suman, quizmaster Derek O’Brien and others of their ilk to rally round her ? When painters, actors, economists, retired police officers and bureaucrats bow before Didi and accept her leadership, it tells a lot about her ability to chart a course off the beaten track. Even as she has been driving the downtrodden wild by merely addressing their concerns, she has quietly gathered specialists like the former Secretary General of FICCI ( Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industy ) Amit
Mitra, tipped to be the finance or the industry minister in her government. Even die-hard communists like Bratya Basu, the playwright who earned the wrath of the Left by staging a political satire, was forced to revolt against cultural policing by the Party and rush to her side. She did not try to cultivate and woo political leaders from other parties. But nor did she throw tantrums when her one-time mentors and later vocal critics like Somen Mitra and Subrata Mukherjee left the Congress and joined her. But both have been quietly sidelined even as she embraced those who respected her tenacity and spirit and accepted her for what she is. Mamata has also been a quick learner. She had aligned with the BJP, thinking that it was the only national party which could take on the Left Front, since the Congress seemed quite comfortable dealing with the Left. She touched the feet of Atal Behari Vajpayee, who visited her modest home to woo her, and was rewarded with a berth in the central cabinet. But she quickly realised that she would have to gain the trust of the minority community in the state, which constituted one-fourth of the electorate, if she were to kep her hope of dislodging the Left Front alive. She, therefore, jumped ship at the first opportunity, when the sting operation by Tehelka hit the NDA. Can she deliver ?
She had a mercurial temper even then and would flare up at the slightest provocation. She spoke in a torrent and her lung power soon came to be respected. She was shrill and fought like a ‘jhee’ ( maid) from the slums, said indulgent party leaders with a laugh. But they knew that the lady could be trusted to be at the forefront of agitations. Fearless to the point of being reckless, she thought nothing of wading into a phalanx of policemen, roundly abusing the men in uniform and daring them to do their worst. She was literally a ball of fire, an ‘Agni Kanya’ as she came to be known. When she was pitted against the redoubtable Somnath Chatterjee in the general election of 1984, one suspects the Congress decision was prompted partly because more senior party leaders were reluctant to take on the CPM stalwart. Mamata was 29 years old at the time and took to the streets like fish to water. There was undoubtedly a sympathy wave in favour of the Congress following Indira Gandhi’s assassination but her victory still came as a surprise. There was no turning back for her and the rest, as the cliché goes, is history. The communists made the mistake of ignoring, even ridiculing her. The CPM leaders would rarely, if ever, address her by name. It was always ‘that woman’ and later a little more respectful ‘ leader of the Trinamool Congress’. She paid them right back, refusing to have any truck with them. It was only after Jyoti Basu stepped down as the Chief Minister that she began calling on him and inquiring after his health. But the communists failed to take advantage of the window of opportunity provided by her. In the last few years she forbade her party leaders from sharing any platform with Left Front leaders. Even Trinamool Congress ministers at the Centre walked out of official functions if they spotted a Left Front minister present there. Ironically, she carved out a constituency among the
destitutes, slum dwellers, squatters and daily wage earners—-the very people who should have been at the vanguard of the communists. She would always be there to lead people to resist evictions. But can she govern and transform herself from an agitationist par excellence to an able administrator ? While cynics continue to have their reservations, she has already demonstrated an ability to rise to challenges. It will come as no surprise if she again proves the pundits wrong .
Can the Left stage a comeback or the CPM survive?
The contempt for Buddhadev Bhattacharjee and his trusted industry minister, Nirupam
Sen, was unmistakable in the statements of Abdur Rezzaq Mollah, one of the few Left Front ministers to win the election. For the outgoing CM , Mollah made the derisive comment that “ He did not have the skills to even catch the most harmless of snakes but he set out to catch a cobra.”
Bhattacharjee fancied himself as an intellectual and institution builder. And the cultural complex of ‘Nandan’ in the heart of
Kolkata, a poor cousin of the Habitat Centre in New Delhi, is credited to him. Indeed he spent most of his evenings there and watched films of his liking in a small private auditorium in the penthouse. What Mollah probably meant was that Bhattacharjee was out of his depth as Chief Minister. A well-meaning bhadralok who refused to leave his two-roomed government flat on Palm Avenue, he was clueless about the demands of administration and politics. While he charmed industrialists and even the Prime Minister, and impressed visitors with his knowledge of films and Latin American literature, Bhattacharjee was too much of a conformist, steeped in his party’s Stalinist traditions. Unlike Mamata
Banerjee, who has served six terms as Member of Parliament, Bhattacharjee has had no exposure to the national capital, where his infrequent visits were meant to attend meetings of Chief Ministers or his party’s Polit
Buro. He must have felt like a fish out of water because in the last few years, he stopped attending these meetings, sending his finance minister to deputise for him, whenever possible. But more than
Bhattacharjee, it was the communist tradition of putting the Party above the government that effectively made the latter impotent. The CPM headquarters on Alimuddin Street was the CM’s first stop every morning before he reached the Secretariat. And every evening, after leaving his office, the CM would again stop at the party office, where all important decisions were taken. No wonder all appointments, transfers, contracts etc. began to be settled by the party functionaries who neither had any responsibility, nor any accountability. Yet another inner contradiction within the CPM has been the divide between the Kerala school and the Bengal school. For the past decade or so, the Bengal communists openly chafed at the Karats and Yechury, who, they pointed out, could neither win elections nor were answerable for party affairs even in Kerala. But they lorded over both the states and their decisions prevailed in the Polit Buro. It remains to be seen if the CPM overcomes the strain of losing power in West Bengal. Whether the Karats manage to avert a split in the party would hold the key to its future. For its own survival, the CPM requires a new generation of younger leaders and re-invent itself by changing archaic systems. Because otherwise, the Left may still survive but the CPM may not. “Reform, perform or perish” is what Bhattacharjee was fond of quoting.. But although Marxists in West Bengal have been promising a reformed and better ‘Left front’, tacitly acknowledging that all is not well, a lot will depend on how they pick up the pieces from the historic electoral debacle in West Bengal. — Uttam Sengupta
|
||||
|
SC to hear Dinakaran case today
New Delhi, May 15 The stay was granted on April 29 by a Bench of Justices HS Bedi and CK Prasad after hearing Justice Dinakaran’s pleadings that senior counsel PP Rao, a member of the Rajya Sabha-appointed inquiry panel, was biased against him and as such should not be part of the panel. While staying the inquiry proceedings, the SC had issued notice to the inquiry panel headed by SC Judge Aftab Alam, seeking its response to Justice Dinakaran’s contentions within two weeks. The Bench had then observed that “justice should not only be done, but also seen to be done”. Justice Dinakaran has contended that Rao was a signatory to a November 2009 memorandum submitted to then Chief Justice of India KG Balakrishnan, opposing his proposed elevation to the Supreme Court. This showed Rao was biased against him. The three-member inquiry committee had begun the day-to-day hearings only two days before the proceedings were stayed. Karnataka HC Chief Justice JS Khehar is the third member of the panel, known as the Judges Inquiry Committee. Justice Dinakaran has also challenged the panel framing several charges against him that went beyond the allegations mentioned in the Rajya Sabha notice of impeachment.
|
|
Cong has its task cut out at plenary session
New Delhi, May 15 Having registered a humiliating defeat in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry combined with a wafer-thin majority in Kerala and the spectacular victory of late Andhra Pradesh chief minister’s son Jaganmohan Reddy, the Congress will lay out a roadmap on how it should compensate for its losses in the South as it begins preparations for the next year’s crucial assembly elections in Punjab, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh. Besides focusing its energies on improving its strength in these three states, the Congress will have to do some long term planning for the 2014 Lok Sabha polls as Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu had contributed as many as 61 MPs to the Lok Sabha in the 2009 elections. It is highly unlikely that the Congress and its allies will be able to match its past performance in the next round of general elections. For the moment, however, the Congress is relieved that it will be forming governments in Kerala and Assam while it looks at the possibility of joining the Mamata Banerjee government in West Bengal. The party is cheering its third-time victory in Assam but it is also evident that the hat trick scored by the chief minister is actually a personal mandate for Tarun Gogoi who has emerged as a strong regional player with a clean image. The Congress may be relieved at having scraped past the half-way mark in Kerala but the thin margin has taken away much of the sheen from the victory. Having won 42 of the 65 seats it contested in West Bengal, the Congress is basking in reflected glory here as it is quite clear that this victory is primarily Mamata Banerjee’s victory. In fact, Pranab Mukherjee was gracious enough to say so yesterday. “People voted for Mamata, it is a mandate for her ” he said. However, it is the Tamil Nadu election result which is a source of great worry for the Congress and
the UPA government. While the DMK has been virtually decimated, the Congress has fared equally badly as it could just win five seats while its vote share has plummeted to a bare six per cent.
|
|
BKU firebrand leader Mahendra Tikait is no more
Muzaffarnagar, May 15 Tikait leaves behind four sons and two daughters. His wife had died earlier. The cremation would be held tomorrow at the BKU headquarters in Sisauli. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh condoled Tikait's death, saying he was a unique leader who will be “deeply missed” in the years ahead. “Chaudhury Tikait’s commitment to the welfare of farmers and to rural India was deep and unwavering,” Singh said. “His work was a powerful influence across the country and inspired the formation of many other organisations devoted to the cause of farmers,” he said. Describing Tikait as a “fiercely independent” person, the Prime Minister said, “He resisted the pulls of politics all his life. His work, his courage of conviction and his simplicity made him a unique leader." In Lucknow, Chief Minister Mayawati said: “Tikait worked throughout the life in the interest of farmers and fought for their cause.” JD(U) leader Sharad Yadav said, “Tikait was a symbol of relentless struggle against farmers exploitation. True homage to him will be stopping the ongoing loot of farmers land in Uttar Pradesh.” Former BJP president Rajnath Singh said Tikait was “free from all stigma of corruption and lived a simple life. We have lost a true friend of farmers.”
Force behind farmers’ cause
Lucknow, May 15 Tikait had formed a non-political organisation BKU on October 17, 1986. Since then the BKU lobbied to uphold the interests of farmers of the country. Wearing a Gandhi cap, the weather-beaten face of the kisan leader puffing away at his hookah and not mincing words to convey his message became a media icon when he descended on the national capital in 1988 which close to 50,000 to 75,000 farmers laying siege to Boat Club. They were a breed representing an assertive land owning class of farmers demanding higher price for their produce, cancellation of loans, subsidies on fertilizers and seeds and lowering of water and electricity rates. For a week, thousands of farmers arrived travelling by buses and bullock carts blocking roads of Lutyens Delhi settling on the lush manicured lawns of Boat Club, cooking meals on mud chullahs and holding panchayats. Since then the firebrand BKU leader spearheaded several movements for the rights of peasants in India and even took the battle to several international fora. On one side, Tikait represented the interests of the farmers for better remuneration for their produce and more facilities. As a farmer leader and the BKU president he led a number of mass movements against the state and Central governments to support the rights of the farmers. He led many international delegations around the globe. The BKU has worked in close cooperation with international organisations like La Via Campesina, Farmers Coordination Committee India, etc. Tikait was arrested several times during his farmers' agitations the latest being in February 2000 in Moradabad while on his way to hold a panchayat in Lucknow. There was, however, another facet of his personality as a village patriarch representing the worst of feudal values and upholding the draconian caste system as well as khap panchayats. Incidentally, he inherited the leadership of Baliyan Khap at the tender age of eight. In recent years his politically incorrect utterances to uphold the khap panchayt decisions and caste system received wide attention often getting him into trouble. CM Mayawati arrested Tikait and later released him on bail on April 2, 2008 for allegedly making derogatory and caste specific remarks against her at a public rally in Bijnore on March 30, 2008. With his death the country has lost a popular farmer leader who at the same time was a controversial social role model.
|
|
RTE monitor: Make child labour cognisable offence
New Delhi, May 15 While that happens, the commission, which is the monitoring agency for the RTE Act, says no excuse is any longer valid to keep children out of school. “The poverty argument --- that children have to work because their parents are too poor --- must now go. We must prohibit child labour in every form, under all circumstances and we are hoping to have a meeting with the secretaries of the Ministries of Labour and Women and Child soon to bring child labour laws in consonance with the RTE Act,” chairperson of the commission Shanta Sinha told The Tribune in an exclusive interview. To start with, the commission is proposing that employment of children, hitherto a non-cognisable offence under the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986, must be made a cognisable offence to allow the police to register FIRs without having to secure orders from the court. Also proposed are major amendments to the Act which is severely limiting in its present form in that it distinguishes between ‘non-hazardous’ and ‘hazardous work’ prohibiting the employment of children only in certain listed hazardous occupations. “By differentiating between child work and child labour; focusing on abolishing hazardous or the worst forms of labour and tolerating the non-hazardous forms, we are depriving children their right to education. Such distinctions should go,” Sinha said. The commission also wants the amended law to cover the families of child labourers. “The law has to be all-pervasive. The current law does not cover the families of child labourers irrespective of the fact that most children work to supplement family incomes. We are proposing to cover family members of child labourers under the new amendments although we want the blame of child’s employment to fall not on the parents but on the actual suppliers of work,” said Sinha. “In the bidi industry, for example, the bidi contractor is a vicarious employer who engages a family to roll bidis. The family in turn engages the children. The bidi contractor must, therefore, be punished,” added Sinha. Among other significant changes proposed to the current law are amendments --- to ensure that children are defined as persons who have not attained 18 years of age (instead of 14 years as per the existing law); to clearly define child labour in accordance with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child which India ratified way back on December 11, 1992 (the existing law does not define child labour); and to prohibit all forms of employment, sans the distinction between hazardous and non-hazardous. The NCPCR also wants to include in the new forms of child labour events of trafficking, forced labour; prostitution and production for children pornographic performance.
|
|
Punjab CM’s wife shifted to ICU Chandigarh, May 15 Resting in the private ward of the VIPs, on the second floor, she became uncomfortable in breathing following which doctors referred her to the ICU. Sukhbir Badal, her son and Deputy CM, visited her in the hospital while the senior Badal was with her in the ward.
|
|
|
Jantar Mantar After Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee and AIADMK’s J Jayalalithaa stormed into power last week, it was only obvious that parallels were being drawn between the country’s two new women Chief Ministers. Mamata has always been a street fighter, a spontaneous speaker who has never been afraid to speak her mind. She has never shown any attachment to material things; has not moved out of her modest home in Kolkata’s Kalighat area, which was once an urban slum; and has spent most of her working time with the people whose cause she has passionately espoused. Her crisp white saris and hawai chappals have become her trademark.
Secrecy over Prime Minister’s visit
|
|
|
| HOME PAGE | |
Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir |
Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs |
Nation | Opinions | | Business | Sports | World | Letters | Chandigarh | Ludhiana | Delhi | | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | E-mail | |
Congress president Sonia Gandhi has congratulated J Jayalalithaa on the AIADMK’s landslide victory in the Tamil Nadu Assembly
elections
The contempt for Buddhadev Bhattacharjee and his trusted industry minister, Nirupam
Sen, was unmistakable in the statements of Abdur Rezzaq Mollah, one of the few Left Front ministers to win the election. For the outgoing CM , Mollah made the derisive comment that “ He did not have the skills to even catch the most harmless of snakes but he set out to catch a cobra.”
Muzaffarnagar, May 15
After Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee and AIADMK’s J Jayalalithaa stormed into power last week, it was only obvious that parallels were being drawn between the country’s two new women Chief Ministers. Mamata has always been a street fighter, a spontaneous speaker who has never been afraid to speak her mind. She has never shown any attachment to material things; has not moved out of her modest home in Kolkata’s Kalighat area, which was once an urban slum; and has spent most of her working time with the people whose cause she has passionately espoused.
The shelf-life of election manifestos is rarely more than 24 hours. But the manifesto issued by Mamata Banerjee barely three months ago, is destined to be quoted for some time to come. That is because it was an audacious document which not only benchmarked the ‘dismal record’ of the Left Front in the state but also made promises which appeared fanciful at best. When 56-years-old Banerjee strides into the Writers’ Building this week as the Chief Minister, it will be this manifesto that will weigh in her mind.
She was 22 years old when the Left Front stormed into power in West Bengal in 1977. Daughter of a school teacher she lived in a modest house on the edge of a slum and a drain that stank so badly that people avoided walking through the area, if they could. With the Left Front on a roll under the charismatic Jyoti Basu, the memories of the Emergency and repression by the Congress government still fresh, the temptation to join the Leftist bandwagon would have been great. But her father was not a communist and she was already a member of the Youth Congress. She had first drawn attention to herself by stopping the motorcade of Jaiprakash Narayan, climbing on the bonnet of his car before she was dragged away by police women.
Current estimates suggest 13 million child labourers aged 5 to 14 in India, and another 85 million children out of school. The figures are expected to surge in the Census 2011 data, expected any time soon.
Jayalalithaa, on the other hand, is a study in contrast. The former film star, who was groomed by the late MGR prefers to retain her mystique by living in her well-protected palatial Poes Garden residence, loves her creature comforts and keeps aloof from her electorate and party cadres, preferring to communicate with them through the telephone. Little wonder then that Mamata snapped at mediapersons when they compared her with Jayalalithaa and was quick to remind them that while the AIADMK head had occupied the CM’s post twice in the past, while she had struggled over the years to dethrone the 34-year-old Left Front government in West Bengal.
The timing of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Afghanistan last week was understandably kept under wraps for security reasons. But the mandarins at the ministry of external affairs went a little overboard over the secrecy clause. The officials refused to disclose the PM’s travel plans till a day before his departure. The standard answer was “he will be going shortly...very soon, you will hear about it when it happens” and so on. Mediapersons, who were to accompany the PM’s team, were told to be prepared to move at short notice. While the Foreign Ministry kept the information close to its chest, the Prime Minister’s Office was far more forthcoming. In fact, it even put out the PM’s pre-departure statement on its website on the evening before he was scheduled to fly to Kabul. Needless to say, MEA officials ended up looking quite sheepish.